My Generation
by NotoriousReign
Summary: After the Battle of New York, Steve finally decides to agree to an interview and realizes he's sick and tired about certain assumptions.


**Author's Note:** Another one from the kink meme, decided to do a quick one since I've wanted to write something for a bit. I almost gave the guy a fedora haha but nah that'd be too much. Enjoy! There's some swearing and mentions of rape and lynching though, but they don't actually happen.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Avengers or any MCU or Marvel comics property, including Christine. I guess I own the hipster characters.

* * *

"Mr. Rogers can I be honest with you?"

"Of course. And please, it's Steve."

Christine Everhart smiled, dropping her gaze bashfully before looking up again with that spark in her eye.

"I was surprised you agreed to do an interview with me. You're not well-known for them."

They met in a small café near the bridge that would later lead him back to Brooklyn. It wasn't too busy that day and out on the patio with their coffees and Christine's tape recorder (unused at the moment) and pad of paper the view was more than exceptional. Steve observed the cars rolling by, happy that a reporter had agreed to meet him in a place like this.

"I wanna say I owed a friend a favor." He smiled when she smirked at the mention of Tony. "But then I remembered how you got him to reveal his identity."

"You've caught up with interviews?"

Steve shrugged. "Interviews, movies, current events. But it takes some time."

"That's understandable." She nodded, a flicker of sympathy passing through her expression before she clicked at her pen and scribbled something down. "So you're fine with me not wanting to hold back?"

"Wouldn't be a good journalist if you did."

Christine also happened to be the only reporter who when she called asking for an interview didn't open up with how awful life must be for him now, so Steve knew if anybody should do it it would be her.

He didn't lie when he said he was still catching up and of course he missed his old life, but that had to do with the _people_ that had been in it. Except for his new team, civilians and reporters never seemed to understand that.

"There wasn't much video footage during the invasion that the public has been calling the Battle of New York, but there were plenty of eye-witnesses. They say you were front and center during most of it. What was it like having to take the command like that? You've done it before haven't you?"

"I have, but nowhere near like what we had to face in New York. I guess I just… knew somebody had to be in charge. We couldn't waste time."

"And you didn't. Have you helped with cleanup and donations to the damages?"

"To the best of my ability." Steve shrugged with a small grin. If he came across too sheepish he'd look like a boy scout. "I'm still like a lot of people. I work, I do my best. But to answer your question I _have_ done that stuff. Made donations, helping clean up."

"You mentioned that it wasn't like any battle you've been in before. You were in the army in the '40s."

Steve tried not to show his contempt for the oncoming question. He kept his expression as neutral as possible, but he knew she had to ask this. Yet, before Christine could a small buzzing noise sounded. She rolled her eyes and turned, pulling a cellphone out of the pocket of a beige coat she had slung over the chair. She clicked a few buttons out of annoyance and put it away.

"Sorry, it's my boss."

"Take your time."

An indignant huff escaped from the table next to them and Steve couldn't help glancing over to see who had clearly been listening in on the interview. It was a group of up to five people sitting together, all close to Steve's age from what he could tell, all wearing similar outfits. The style would best be described as vintage, or trying to be, the main guy with black bangs hanging over his eyes even holding a camera that looked to Steve was from the 1950s. Or wanted very badly to be from the 1950s.

Steve could tell just from the scoff and the clothes and the smug look the five of them were giving that all of them desperately wanted to be from that era. Hell a few of them were staring with amusement at the tape recorder. Not old enough for them.

He had dressed casually with a light blue T-shirt that Natasha helped him pick out and dark jeans, while Christine opted for more of a stylish black skirt and red blouse. They both, of course, looked like they were from the 21st century.

"Can we help you? This is a private conversation."

A few of them looked embarrassed, especially the two girls in the group, but the main guy with his camera just shook his head.

"Sorry. Just can't believe you would want to be interviewed by _her_ and then she still has the audacity to bring that along with her."

"What? A cellphone?"

"Steve, we can continue this somewhere with more privacy."

"There's nowhere here with _more_ privacy." One of the other men piped up, eyeing his friend and then turning back just to address Steve like he had been the one speaking. Which is something Steve has always _hated_. "Technology's watching you everywhere no matter what."

His friend with the camera nodded, impressed, as if he was talking to a child. "That's right Mickey." When he got a proud smile in response he went back to Steve. "I'm Keith." He held out his hand and Steve let it stay there for a long awkward minute before he put it down.

"Like I said. This is a private conversation."

Steve turned back to Christine apologetically, but turned right around at the next thing that came out of "Keith's" mouth.

"I thought people from your time were supposed to be polite."

"Excuse me?" Christine snapped, just as annoyed.

"Not you. Maybe… you know, _our_ time period has influenced you too much."

Steve furrowed his eyebrows. He was starting to wish they had gone somewhere else after all. Christine didn't need to hear this, she didn't deserve this. And neither did he.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Although he knew already. It was the whole reason why Steve steered clear from interviews in the first place and now this guy was giving him the interview he didn't want. Typical.

"You know. People in my generation, they're rude, they swear, they barely wear clothes in our music and movies. It's all crap. It must've been amazing to be part of the Greatest Generation. People actually heard of modesty and politeness, the music was amazing and technology and sex wasn't shoved down your throat."

"It's pretty juvenile to think that people didn't have sex or swear in _any_ time period."

Keith blinked. "What?"

"Fuck you."

That took him aback, a horrified laugh lodged in his throat as he gave his friends a 'can you believe this?' look.

"You do realize you're looking at the romantic version of a time period right?"

Steve raised his eyebrows expectantly as Keith turned back around. He spoke in a loud and clear tone in case anybody else wanted to eavesdrop, leaning forward to address the group.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean it is absolutely amazing that me and my generation fought the Nazis, but—"

"Exactly—"

"_But_… my generation also did some seriously terrible things."

The smugness came back and Keith scoffed again, smiling at his friends who returned their smiles meekly.

"Not like the atrocities we've pulled lately. We used to be _against_ genocide, or did you forget that? Nobody blames you if you did—"

"When Jewish people were trying to leave Germany in the '30s as laws were being made against them they tried to come here and to Canada. Do you know what _my_ generation did? Turned them away."

Keith shook his head and finally glanced at Christine, who's smile was starting to appear as she opened her notebook and clicked the tape recorder on, but Steve didn't break his focus.

"There was no way for them to know—"

"Have you ever _actually_ opened up a history book or did you just automatically think getting the aesthetic right made you an expert? After we turned these people away, _during_ the actual War my generation locked up Japanese Americans in internment camps. Before you even _dare_ to say it was a precaution these were people who lived and grew up in America and they were deprived of their homes and rights, forced into terrible conditions. My generation did that." Steve cocked his head. "Or did you forget? Did you know in the 1940s you could buy a postcard of a black man being lynched? Marital rape was also completely legal too. This so-called 'Greatest Generation' made many people, women and people of color especially, suffer horribly. But you would've fit right in and that's all that matters right?"

Silence. The smug nonchalance had completely evaporated and Keith had somehow shrunk in on himself, face having completely reddened. Now people around them _had_ stopped in surprised, Christine scribbling furiously in her notebook with the rape recorder rolling away beside her.

"I am sick and tired of being told that I'm from some Greatest Generation, when in fact they were just people – ordinary ones with dark flaws, just like every generation, including this one. To put them on a pedestal and see them as anything more is not only an insult to them but to _me_."

Steve gave the group one last unblinking glare before he slowly turned back to Christine. Even with her hand flying over the paper she looked poised.

"Now. Where were we?"

"Actually I think I have everything I need."

The next day Tony asked Steve if he slept with Christine Everhart. "How else did you get her to write such a good report on you? Lucky bastard."

* * *

**Author's Note:** Great now I think I ship it...


End file.
